


Little Spy Academia episode 1: Bad times at the absolution casino

by flobknocker



Category: Little Witch Academia
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Gen, contains references to other anime, it's basically just casino royale but also Little Witch Academia, pipe up if you spot one, this started life as a shitpost and grew legs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-08 03:19:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16421393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flobknocker/pseuds/flobknocker
Summary: After rumours surface of the identities of hundreds of spies being offered as the prize for a poker game, Luna Obscura dispatches its most distinguished operative, Agent Diana Cavendish - and the promising rookie, Agent Akko Kagari - to try to win it back. But of course, these things have a tendency not to go to plan. Particularly when the prize is offered by the dastardly international arms dealer known only as "Croix".The first episode of a series of short-ish stories that I'm planning to release to form a larger, coherent narrative. I'll try to upload the next episode bit by bit every week, but the first episode is complete, and so I'm sharing it with you all.





	Little Spy Academia episode 1: Bad times at the absolution casino

**Author's Note:**

> Contains moderate, bloodless violence. I've opted not to use warnings because I feel that this should be covered by the genre and teen rating, but I wanted to give a heads-up, just in case.

The Absolution Casino looked imposing by day, but by night it looked positively hostile. With a thunderstorm fast approaching as they pulled up, Akko had to admit that she felt just a little scared.

The casino had once been a manor house nestled deep in rural Italy, surrounded by acres and acres of vineyard, and it retained all of its original architecture, with its big arches, large external staircases, bare stone walls, and huge sash windows. With not so much as a single piece of garish neon on display or extravagant logos there was no real way to tell that it currently operated as a casino, save for the line of expensive cars turning up in front of the front door to be driven away by the valet.

Even within the line of Audis, Ferraris, Lamborghinis and other cars whose manufacturers names ended in “i”, Diana's arctic white Aston Martin still stood out.

Nestled within its luxurious, bespoke interior, Akko found herself wishing that the journey would take just a little bit longer, so that she could continue to sit safely in the passenger seat and wait for the storm to pass.

“Ears and eyes, Akko.”

Diana’s clear and concise tone drifted with its usual elegance over the engine’s idle purr, and, dutifully, Akko poked the glove compartment open and then touched the little fingerprint reader concealed within. With a quiet beep, the gadget verified her identity and a little tray slid out from a concealed compartment, bearing two sets of earpieces and contact lenses. She handed one set to Diana as they waited in the line, before taking hers and fiddling with it a considerable amount. Eventually, she was satisfied with how she’d fitted it, but when Diana looked at her to check, she nevertheless insisted on reaching over and poking her ear a couple of times.

“Hey, cut it out. I can do it myself,” Akko insisted.

Diana’s disapproving scowl told her otherwise. “I could see the antenna.”

“Yeah, well, who’s going to be looking at me that close anyway?”

Diana didn’t even look at her as she replied, “The staff will be. This place handles the kind of bets that most people could buy houses with, do you think they’re going to let it slide if they find you going about with an earpiece?” 

Akko shook her head with a defeated sigh. “No, Diana.”

“Good. Stick to the plan and this will work out.”

She tried to relax as the line of cars shortened and Diana took them up to the entrance, where a friendly-looking young gentleman wearing a deep red waistcoat over a black shirt and trousers greeted them with a wave and a smile. “Welcome to the Absolution Casino, Miss Belvedere. Your suite is ready for you, with a bottle of 2002 Qubrolon Del Cagliostro chilling as per your request. May I park your car for you, miss?”

“Very good. Please see to it that my car is parked near to the entrance.”

Akko watched in awe as Diana handed the keys over to the man and another attendant opened the boot of the car to take their suitcases for them, and once the staff had finished their work, Akko followed Diana’s lead and stepped out of the car with as much grace as her off-the-peg dress would allow.

Though of course, she looked like a common waif next to Diana. The little red dress Akko had arrived in fitted her well, but it was expected that students of Luna Obscura provide their own clothes for the mission, and having no money of her own to splash out with, she had been forced to go with the relatively cheap dress that had been selected for her by Director Ursula. All of which made her yet more envious of Diana in her suit: tailored to her exact specifications and made to accentuate her long, slender limbs. It matched the finest cotton Egypt could offer with a stunning ivory white, offset by obsidian black highlights around the collar and lapels. She even had diamond cufflinks and matching black buttons to go with it.

Akko followed Diana into the casino’s reception, and once inside, Akko felt herself swamped by the sheer volume of activity going on around her. Huge and intricate chandeliers bathed the room in light, with little rainbow patterns occasionally catching her eye as the light was refracted by the polished crystals. Patrons and staff swirled and sifted around her, and the air positively throbbed with the sounds of countless conversations, punctuated with the harsh rattle of roulette wheels and the incessant ringing and whooping of the slot machines further off in the bowels of the casino.

She’d been in busy places before, but, generally, those had been concerts or markets, and she’d had an easy way out back then. Now she had to rely on her skills as a spy to keep her alive. Which she felt like she instantly failed at, as the lady at the reception desk took one look at her and asked if she was there with Diana.

“She’s my plus one for the night,” Diana assured the woman. “Mari’s my personal financier and as such I trust her to ensure that I don’t spend _too_ _much_ money tonight. Not that that should matter, though. I’m feeling particularly lucky tonight.”

The receptionist smiled and handed her the card to her room. “Good luck tonight, Miss Belvedere,” she said cheerfully, and Diana thanked her before putting the card in her inside pocket and heading off.

Akko followed, keeping by Diana’s heels like a little lost lamb as they went through the casino, and she tried her best to memorise the route and any fire escapes she could find on the way, just as she’d been taught.

She’d been on too many missions that ended in burning buildings to forget that lesson.

Akko counted a total of four fire escapes before bumping into Diana’s back as she stopped outside their suite, but before she could apologise, Diana sighed and handed her a blank card, quite different from the fancy one the receptionist had given her.

“Try it,” she said, and Akko obeyed, jabbing the card into the reader on the door, which chimed and lit up a green light, letting them into their room.

And what a room it was: a voluminous four-poster bed with curtains around the sides – of the kind she associated with princesses – utterly dominated the room with its intricately carved motifs and dark wood, while across the room, a wood fire burned healthily in a modern placement, with the embers dancing and flitting their way up the chimney and bathing the room in a soft, orange glow.

The little lights inset into the ceiling took a few seconds to reach their full brightness, revealing the wooden floor, massive TV, and lavish modern furniture, and as Diana closed the door behind her, Akko felt an excitement like a thousand ants climbing up her spine. The TV and the seats had changed since she had went to the show, but there was no way she could mistake the room’s layout and the huge bed.

This was the room Sneaky Chariot had stayed in during the Casino Crook Caper.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thankfully, the game she was booked into started in an hour and a half, which gave Diana time enough to calm Akko down. For ten straight minutes she waited in silence as Akko babbled almost incoherently, hardly even taking a pause for breath and making frequent, wild gestures as she darted around the room and exclaimed at just about every detail she could remember from the show.

“Oh my gosh, Diana! We should totally look for Chariot’s bug! She always left a bug wherever she went and I bet we’re the first people to have this room who know about it!”

Diana nodded slowly. “I doubt it would still be active after this long, but if it will help you focus on the mission at hand, then we may as well check for bugs.”

She braced herself for the string of shrill, excited squeaks of gratitude, and took a deep breath before opening one of the suitcases that the staff had carried in for her. Reaching deep into it, she carefully released a pair of tiny, hidden catches behind the clothes.

“Do you usually go to places and forget to check for listening devices?” Diana asked, being careful to make her tone as neutral as possible.

“Ummm… I think Lotte usually does that,” Akko said, pulling a strange face, like she wasn’t at all sure about that and was trying her hardest to remember.

Silently, Diana scolded herself for her hubris; had she not been so insistent that she wouldn’t work with Amanda for the mission, then Director Holbrooke wouldn’t have had to pair her up with Kagari. In fact, Diana felt confident that the only reason Holbrooke had selected Akko for the mission was because Director Ursula seemed to see Akko as her pet project.

She peeled back the clothes in the case, so that she could get at the hidden compartment beneath them, and slid the compartment’s lid aside to reveal a gun and a small, wooden cylinder. She took the gun out first and retrieved the two magazines of ammunition contained with it, then inspected it meticulously for defects and finally slid one of the magazines into place and pulled back the slide.

It gave a satisfying mechanical clicking sound as one of the bullets was loaded into the chamber, and when she released it, the slide returned to its resting position without so much as a whisper of resistance.

And then, reassuringly, it made a quiet beeping noise to tell her that it was armed and coded to her handprint.

Of course, Akko had come over to watch with a strange kind of fascination. Without saying anything, Diana handed her the little wooden cylinder.

It looked just a bit too large in Akko’s hands, but Akko thanked her briskly and turned it over to push a little button on the side. A trident-like piece of metal on a telescopic rod sprung forth from the top of the cylinder, with one prong recessed at the base, and with the other two coming round in a circle and pointing towards the middle, forming a representation of Luna Obscura’s insignia.

Akko twisted the base of the device, and it made a low-pitched humming noise which indicated that it hadn’t picked up any bugs. She remembered when she had to do that for the first time in the field. The “magic wand” was a multi-purpose tool given to Luna Obscura students who had progressed to field activities, but who hadn’t yet been deemed fit to use lethal means against their targets. In all, it comprised five different modules: a bug detector, a grappling hook, a lockpick, a communications scrambler, and a taser, should a student find herself forced to fight.

Positively trembling with excitement, Akko thanked her again and began swinging the wand about with abandon, listening for any fluctuations in the humming noise, which gave Diana time to unpack the rest of the equipment she’d brought. Diana first took out the change of clothes she’d packed for herself and Akko, then took out a perfect copy of the dark red uniform given to all the casino staff, which had been tailored specifically to fit Akko. Perhaps she would feel excitement at the sight of her disguise, but Akko was busy poking her head up the chimney and trying not to burn her hair to notice. In spite of how ridiculous the looked, the bug detector had begun to make a little warbling noise, so perhaps she was onto something.

Once Diana had laid the uniform out, she reached into her inside pocket and pulled out the card duplicating machine she’d used to give Akko a spare key, and stashed it in the compartment the gun had come from, so that the staff wouldn’t see anything suspicious if somebody came in. And finally, once finished with that, she reached into the same pocket and pulled out a pair of little rings, the larger of which she fitted onto one of her toes, before covering it with her socks and shoes.

Eventually, after singeing her hair slightly, Akko seemed satisfied with her endeavour to retrieve the bug hidden inside the chimney and came over to her, beaming with pride.

“I found Chariot’s bug!” she proclaimed, and Diana was left to respond with a calm and neutral “that’s lovely”, then turned her attention back to the task at hand. She pointed to the uniform and the little ring. “Put these on and familiarise yourself with them: the game starts soon and I need you to look like you’ve always been here.”

Akko nodded enthusiastically and took the uniform and ring, then dashed off into the bathroom, leaving Diana alone to worry about the mission and the adversary she would be facing tonight. And with Akko indisposed for a minute or two, she allowed herself to smile a tiny bit at the room she was in. She might have even felt jealous of Akko finding the bug, if it weren’t for what she had in her car.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The plan was hardly simplicity itself, but with Agents Parker and England by her side, she had carried out far more complicated plans before. In theory, Diana could complete the mission herself: all she’d have to do was to defeat an international arms dealer called Croix in a game of poker and then she’d be allowed access to his private suite, where she would be could claim the package as her prize.

Akko was just insurance.

She had planned the mission in such a way as to minimise the amount that she would have to rely on Agent Kagari, while still having her around in some capacity to provide an alternative solution.

The casino split its games of poker into hour-long rounds, with a half-hour break in between so the players could take a rest for a while, during which, the casino switched out almost all the staff at the VIP table. This would put Akko in the unique position of being able to help inside the poker room, and also allowing her an hour to sneak into Croix’s suite to open the package and tamper with it, thusly affording her a safety net, should she fail to beat her opponent at poker. Because it would be utterly foolish to assume that anyone offering the identities of hundreds of international spies as a prize would play fair.

There was a knock at the door, and a fresh-faced young man greeted her with a smile. “Your table awaits, miss,” he said, and she accepted his invitation gladly.

He took her down a set of stairs and along a corridor to an ornate set of double doors, which he opened with a flourish to reveal the VIP room. In here, the sounds of the rest of the casino were muted almost entirely, and replaced with nothing but the whisper of the air conditioning unit and the occasional tinkling of the barkeeper mixing a series of drinks at the lavishly stocked bar. 

Dark wood accents on the walls contrasted the yellow marble that made up most of the walls and floor, and a chandelier as ornate as the ones in the reception hall bathed the room in light, which was all but absorbed by the matte black poker table in the centre of the room, which bore the casino’s logo in gold.

Six other players had arrived already and had taken their places, leaving her to sit opposite the one remaining seat at the table. Around them stood a small handful of staff, Akko among them, ready to tend to the requirements of any of the players. Akko looked surprisingly authentic in the outfit, with the silk gloves and her hair down. If Diana didn’t know better, she would have believed that Akko had been serving the VIP table for years.

They all waited in silence for about a minute before the door opened again, and one of the staff led Croix in, allowing Diana to gaze upon her target. He didn’t look how she’d imagined him to look: for starters, he was a  _ she _ . Croix was by all accounts a fascinating woman to look at; she wore a long red dress that went all the way from a lacy collar that looked as if it simply became one with her neck, to her ankles, where a set of matching shoes with heels as long and thin as icepicks completed her look. All of which would appear daunting on any woman, but Croix had a particularly devious and cunning look about her. Her face had fairly masculine angles and features that gave her a distinctive look, but with her hair tied up at a jaunty angle, they seemed even more pronounced, lending her an altogether more menacing air that was only completed by her surgical and astute gaze. She smiled outwardly, but inside Diana could sense no warmth. Just a cold, bottomless void of calculation.

And that scared her more than she cared to admit.

She’d faced down enough angry walls of meat in her time to know how to deal with that particular threat, but it was always the smart ones that worried her, because as sure as she was of her own capabilities, she was also acutely aware that at some point she was going to run into somebody smarter than her. And Croix gave off the same air of confidence that Diana’s mother had when she was alive.

Croix took her seat and Diana watched as the dealer began setting up the game, then turned her attention back to Croix, realising that she had begun to smirk. Whether it was just to put her off or whether Croix had some reason to smirk eluded her, but nonetheless, the threat was as clear as day.

“Not what you expected?” Croix said as the dealer finished setting up.

As Diana was handed her chips, she sat back in her seat and considered her reply carefully. “Not particularly. Your reputation precedes you, but word of your appearance is rather thin on the ground, though I assume a lady of your profession might want the relative anonymity that affords. Perhaps that anonymity might be by design.”

She scrutinised Croix to see if she reacted in any meaningful way, but by now she had picked up her cards and her expression was completely unreadable. Against an opponent like that, Diana’s only viable strategy would be to hope that the cards fell in her favour.

As luck would have it, the cards she received were indeed in her favour, and with a strong hand at her disposal, she stood a good chance of at least getting through the early stages on luck alone. But just as insurance, she wrapped her big toe around the ring on the adjacent toe and applied pressure, causing it to vibrate for a second before it stopped. She saw Akko look down to her feet from behind Croix and had to fight the urge to shoot her a warning glance, but mercifully, Akko snapped back to her previous position, before carefully peering over Croix’s shoulder. Her foot buzzed once: Croix had a bad hand.

\---------------------------------------------------

She had to admit, when Diana had tried to explain the rules of poker to her on the plane, she had landed in Italy with less an idea of how to play than she’d had before she left.

The rings were there as a contingency. Originally, Akko had insisted on a series of complicated hand signals that needed to be carried out as covertly as possible, but after driving them both mad trying to teach her the full set of signals, Diana just settled on a simple code. One buzz meant a bad hand, two meant a good hand, three meant danger, and four meant abort mission.

Not that she really knew what a good hand actually was, short of a decent manicure and a lack of scars, but Diana had told her – between deep sighs and pained gestures – that if the collection of cards looked like it had lots of matching cards or seemed like it had some kind of pattern, then it was good. From this, Akko had gathered that poker was some kind of advanced game of snap. So to reduce the chance of her being caught peering over Croix’s shoulder, Diana would give her a single buzz as her signal to take a look, and at all other times, she would be playing her role as one of the staff. Which meant milling around the room and serving drinks to all eight of the players, among other things.

As it turned out, professional poker players drank like fish and appeared to almost exclusively consume cocktails costing over twenty euros a piece, which were more often than not garnished with an entire hedgerow. Naturally, Akko took the opportunity to take a passing glance at Croix’s cards whenever her errands allowed her to, but for the most part, she found herself silently cheering for Diana.

Being behind Croix and having almost no knowledge of the game’s intricacies, Akko could only assume that she was a formidable opponent. Yet over the course of about three quarters of an hour, Akko watched Diana’s stack of chips grow steadily larger. Eventually, Diana raised a hand to request a drink, and dutifully Akko went over to her, carrying her little tray aloft as she went, mimicking how she’d seen fancy waiters do it on TV.

She caught just the slightest flicker of dismay from Diana.

“May I have a gin martini please,” Diana said, “and, if you can, tell the bartender to go large with the gin and then tell it a nice little story about vermouth.”

She nodded. “As you wish, madam,” Akko said, then turned to saunter off to the bar.

Behind her, the game continued, with a groan coming from one of the less fortunate players, whose final desperate play had spectacularly failed on him, leaving him some millions less wealthy than he was when he came into the casino. She felt sorry for the man; he’d been a pleasant customer for the short time she’d known him and he always gave her a smile and a thank you whenever she gave him his expensive whisky. In fact, it seemed frankly absurd to her that people would stake such incredible sums of money on a mere card game.

Still, as strange as the circumstances appeared to her, she had to play along for now, and so when the barman turned his attention to her, she gave him the request that Diana had given her, verbatim. The barman nodded, then turned his back on her to prepare the drink. Akko watched the game continue for a little while as the drink was made, then turned her attention back to the bar once the barman had finished. He presented her with a particularly wide glass, which was almost ice-cold to the touch and filled just below the brim with a perfectly clear liquid, garnished with a single olive. It smelled like depression and classiness and – if her memory served her – tasted worse.

She tried to disguise how confused she was by the appeal of the drink as she reached over to the little tray she’d set down on the bar, but as she did so, a familiar voice piped up in her ear. “I hope you’re not planning on drinking that. Not unless you like internal bleeding, anyway.”

Akko quickly turned away from the barman and tried to look at something fairly innocuous, then whispered back, firmly, “Sucy? I thought you were in Morocco?”

“I  _ am _ in Morocco. I’ve got your video feed, dummy.”

She made a little sigh of realisation at Sucy’s point, then turned back to the offending drink, now curious, “How can you tell?” she asked, making sure that the barman wasn’t looking when she did so.

Sucy’s response was characteristically measured and sardonic. “There’s something in there that’s lighter than the spirits: the light going through the glass isn’t falling as it should be for five parts gin to vermouth. Most likely it’s one of the nastier natural ones, given your situation.”

As much as she’d been expecting that kind of an answer, it brought with it an uncomfortable new revelation. “Wait, you mean they’re on to me?”

“No, it just means Diana’s winning. Now do something about that drink before people start staring at you.”

The dismay in Sucy’s voice was palpable, but she had a point; without a valid reason, Akko would have one of the staff breathing down her neck for stalling. If push came to shove, she could just drop the drink, but that would only draw more attention to her, and if she did that then she risked exposing both herself and Diana. No, she needed some other option.

“Excuse me, sorry to bother you, but it’s really dry in here and I’ve been standing around for ages, could I please have some water?” Then she quickly added, “Oh, and could I have it in one of those glasses with the olive? I’ve always wanted to try that.”

He looked at her with a considerable amount of disdain, but then shrugged and turned round to pour her a glass of water, while the seed of a particularly reckless plan germinated in her mind.

“How much is in that glass?” she whispered.

“Enough to kill Diana.”

“Enough to kill her twice?”

There was a long and uncomfortable pause from the earpiece, before Sucy finally responded, “No. Not twice.”

The low and cautious tone of her voice told Akko that Sucy had already guessed what she was planning on doing, but by now she had no other options – the original glass was too tainted to safely transfer the drinks and she’d taken about as long as she reasonably could to think of a viable alternative.

She gave Diana three buzzes with her toe as the barkeeper handed over her glass of water, and she made sure to look at the light that fell on the bar, only picking up the new drink once Sucy confirmed it was safe. With a cheerful “thank you,” Akko got up with the drinks and sauntered over to the playing area, where she could see that Diana’s luck had failed her slightly in the time Akko had spent getting her drink.

Taking a mental note of which drink was which, she carefully handed Diana the glass of water, and gave a single buzz to hopefully communicate that she’d made the drink safe, before she sidled off with the poisoned drink, and proceeded to take a large gulp from it.

\------------------------------------------------

The drink tasted about as foul as she’d expected, but she had to make it look like nothing was wrong, and so she forced herself to put on a brave face as the bitter, oily drink slid down her throat, burning her tongue and carrying with it a dose of poison that would kill any normal girl.

But she was not a normal girl, or at least, not after sharing a room with Sucy for over a year. 

Sucy had mentioned internal bleeding, and given that she could identify poison from the way it refracted light in a glass, Akko felt entirely inclined to believe her, which meant that the poison in the glass was almost certainly not the kind of fast-acting neurotoxin that could kill a person in seconds. In fact, it made sense that Croix would opt for a slower, hemorrhagic poison. That way, Diana would be most likely to die in her room, away from the prying eyes of the staff, thus allowing Croix time to get away. But Diana hadn’t been routinely fed poison by her roommate, and so where she might have a mere five or so minutes before she finally succumbed to the poison, Akko had substantially more time on her clock. But that wasn’t to say that it didn’t hurt. 

“You idiot,” Sucy hissed in her ear, and Akko had to try her very best to block her out as she watched the last few minutes of the round unfolding.

She resumed her position behind Croix, so she could get a good view of her cards if Diana requested it, but as the round dragged on, it became increasingly difficult to maintain her composure as the poison worked its way through her, and when the dealer finally called an end to the round, she breathed a heavy sigh of relief that earned her an unguarded look of alarm from Diana. It crossed her mind that Croix might have noticed it, but Diana quickly resumed her normal facade and got up from her position at the table, before being escorted back to her room by another member of the staff, as was Croix, leaving her alone, save for the dealer.

“Say, you don’t look so good,” he said.

She brushed it off with a shrug and said, “Oh, it’s probably just something I ate. I’m fine, honestly.”

She made sure to give him a wide smile to put him at ease, but by now she’d begun sweating profusely and she was beginning to feel her strength failing her, so she made sure to make a hasty retreat the moment he turned around. Once she’d left the VIP suite, she cut her way through the crowd in the main hall as fast as she could, stopping just short of barging old ladies out of her way as she rushed to the accommodation.

“I reckon you’ve got eight minutes before you collapse. Not to hurry you or anything.”

“Not helping, Sucy,” she hissed, as she threw herself headlong down yet another aisle of slot machines in the seemingly endless main hall.

“Yes I am. You know you have eight minutes before you die. That’s helpful in your scenario.”

Akko groaned aloud as she finally came to the end of the slot machines and went through the large double doors that led to the reception, where she straightened up and tried to walk about as normally as she could in front of the receptionist.

“Couldn’t you at least tell me something encouraging?” Akko whispered as she made her way out of the entrance hall and over to the stairs.

“Lotte would have died five minutes ago.”

Akko grimaced, both from Sucy’s incredible lack of tact and from the pain, but she understood her intent, at least – though she hastened to add, “Lotte wouldn’t have drunk a whole glass of poison. She’s smart like that.”

By the time Sucy had given her the obligatory “I told you so,” she’d come up to the residential area, and made her way to the room by the time Sucy finished speaking, leaving Akko to fumble clumsily at her pockets for the keycard. The longer she groped and patted, the more her panic threatened to engulf her, until she managed to pull the card out and – on the third attempt – jammed it into the reader. The door unlocked and she took the card with her as she ducked away inside, to face a scowling Diana who handed her a champagne flute full of a bubbling, milky liquid.

“Drink.”

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She had swallowed it enough times to know what the Luna Obscura broad-spectrum antidote tasted like, even if Diana had taken the liberty of mixing it with champagne for her. Unfortunately, it tasted almost as bad as the poison it was made to neutralise. Akko gulped it down anyway, willing to drink just about anything to stop the pain.

“That was reckless, Kagari. You’re more useful to me alive than you are dead.” Her scowl was unwavering, but the slight hint of warmth in her voice told her that Diana at least felt some amount of sympathy – and to that end, Diana pointed to the bed, where she’d set down the bucket that the champagne had been kept in. 

With her head dipped down in shame, Akko trudged over to the bed and sat where she’d been instructed, and once she got settled, Diana came over and sat down next to her.

“It was all I could think of,” Akko said, sounding more bitter than she had intended to, owing to the pain of the poison, which had at least reached a plateau by now.

Diana’s expression changed again, being now much more understanding. “Be that as it may, I must acknowledge your enginuity. I’m sure my team would have taken care of the matter in their own way, but given the circumstances, I’m confident that Parker and England wouldn’t have come up with such a novel plan.” She seemed like she was about to go on, but something caught her attention. “And it seems you put up an admirable fight. I can only assume that comes with exposure to Sucy.”

Akko smiled weakly at her – any praise from Diana was high praise indeed and she wasn’t about to let that go.

“You know, Kagari,” Diana began, speaking in an unusually earnest tone, “when I learned that Parker and England weren’t to be accompanying me on this assignment, Director Ursula was quite insistent that you should join me. I wonder if this is what she sees in you.”

Akko screwed her face up in confusion and said, “You mean that I drink poison?” 

Diana suppressed a chuckle, but her eyes showed mirth. “No, I mean that you’re impulsive. Honestly, if it were up to me, I’d have had you assigned to Amanda’s little circus the moment I saw your test scores, yet under Ursula’s guidance, it seems that against all odds you’ve proven yourself a worthy agent.”

Akko blubbed a “thank you” then coughed up blood into the bucket.

Diana gave her a pitiful look and continued, “Tell me, back when you passed the field exam, how did you get Lotte to swallow the emetic?”

Ordinarily, she might have answered differently, but the feeling of having her insides burning made her suddenly inclined towards complete honesty, and so she quickly replied, “I just asked her to.”

Diana laughed for a moment and then went silent as Akko fixed her with the most serious expression she could, while also enduring poison. She looked shocked – horrified, even — then confused, and finally, impressed. “You mean you just asked politely?” 

Akko nodded.

“You realise you managed to fool the entire board of directors?” Diana said. 

She shook her head. “I thought that was allowed. The brief was to make her swallow it by any means necessary, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it to her, so I just asked.”

Diana seemed to have finally wrapped her head around what she was saying. “Everybody seems to think you used some kind of subterfuge, and I saw Director Finnelan’s notes on the matter stating that you’d slipped it into her porridge in the morning.”

“I did do that. Lotte told the truth.”

Diana finally accepted what she was saying and got up from the bed, leaving her and the bucket together, before fixing her suit in the mirror and heading over to the door. The moment she reached the door, her normal, guarded expression came back, and her voice returned to its familiar crisp and level intonation as she reached for the handle. “There’s ten minutes until the next round. Wait until you stop coughing up blood and then do whatever you have to. I’m counting on you.”

\----------------------------------------------------

It took about half an hour before she felt anywhere near well enough to do anything strenuous, but eventually, Akko got up from the bed and got ready to make her next move. She was fairly hopeful that Diana would be doing well at the poker table, so she walked out to the balcony and looked out along the wall, to see the other balconies on the side of the casino, where the rest of the expensive suites were. While she’d been pretending to be one of the staff, she’d seen where Croix was staying, and sure enough, her suite was just a few rooms down.

Satisfied with her plan, Akko headed back inside and opened up her own suitcase, shifting a few articles of clothing out of the way to reveal a fairly thick satchel full of documents. Ursula had been uncharacteristically vague when she spoke about the files Akko was carrying, but she had been entirely clear that they were counterfeit agents’ details that were intended to be swapped out for the real ones in Croix’s suite.

Come to think of it, Ursula seemed utterly distracted when she was briefed.

Still, she could ask her about it later; right now, she had to step up and be the agent that Diana needed her to be. And that meant doing more things that would earn Diana’s scorn.

Taking the satchel and slinging it around her shoulder, she went back to the balcony and took out the magic wand and twisted the base, before pointing it up over the roof and pushing the button to release it. With a satisfying little puff, the end of the wand sailed up into the air and fell down over the other side, before getting caught on something when she pushed the button to reel it back in. She gave it a good tug, just to be sure, then backed up into her room as far as the fine cable would allow and took a running jump off the balcony.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For a sickening moment, she felt herself in freefall, but a press of the retract button pulled the line taut and she began to swing outward over the vineyard, barely stifling a squeal of fear as she saw the drop below her.

Rain lashed at her face and the wind threatened to whisk her away as she sailed silently through the air, swinging past three rooms on her way round, until her arc finally took her into the wall beside Croix’s balcony, which she hit with a considerable amount of force. Akko flailed her arms and legs, scrambling to catch hold of the balcony as she felt the line trying to pull her away, and with one leg and her right arm, she managed to secure herself. She shook the line vigorously to dislodge the hook and retracted it, holstered the wand, then swung herself over the edge of the balcony and took a moment to catch her breath and survey her situation.

The curtains inside were drawn and the lights were on, but she couldn’t hear any noise from inside, nor could she see any shadows moving.

Though, with the storm she’d seen earlier now well and truly upon her, it was difficult to hear much of anything from inside, over the wind in her ears.

Like the suite she was staying in, Croix’s room had a set of double doors that opened onto the balcony, and next to it, a smaller, open window that led into the bathroom. Naturally, she gravitated towards the bathroom window.

And as she did so, Akko found herself faced with a new complication: she was now quite profoundly drunk.

Having consumed an entire martini and a glass of champagne only a few minutes afterwards, Akko had inadvertently drank more strong alcohol in about half an hour than she had in her whole life. Of course – Akko reasoned – Diana had probably been given cocktails from when she was old enough to say the word  _ vodka,  _ so she probably hadn’t thought anything of mixing the antidote with champagne. As it stood, though, Akko now had to contend with her body not quite handling as usual.

Akko sauntered over to the window, reached up to the sill, pulled it open some more, and hauled herself halfway inside, before noticing a rather burly man who had just finished using the toilet. By the time she’d realised her mistake, they’d already made eye contact.

“Err… hi,” Akko squeaked.

For a few seconds, neither of them did anything. For her part, Akko had frozen in place, hoping that the man would not see her as a threat, and that maybe if she kept still enough, he wouldn’t notice her. The man stood still mostly from confusion. “So, um… gosh, you look lovely today,” Akko said, flashing him the broadest smile she could muster. He cocked his head to the side, unable to quite work out what was going on, then lunged for her.

Akko scrambled to drop out of the back of the window, but her drunken state made her movements sloppy, ensuring that before she’d even got her chest back over the threshold, the man had grabbed her. Akko made an ugly yelp as he hauled her in, and flailed her arms around uselessly as he hoisted her above his head. Her stomach lurched and her head swam as she found herself being thrust towards the ceiling, only to have him let go with one hand; swinging her round by her collar and leaving her neck exposed. As quickly as she could, Akko flung her arms around her neck to try to protect herself from being strangled, but in response, the man let go of her entirely.

She fell down and landed hard on the edge of the bath, before tumbling backwards into it and coming to rest in a heap. With her legs and arms splayed out like an upturned spider, Akko quickly realised just how vulnerable a position she was in, and as soon as her head cleared from the impact, she swung herself about to try to get out. The moment she began trying to escape the bathtub, than the man appeared over the side, his hands open, ready to finish the job. Were she sober, perhaps Akko might have been able to get out sooner, but with the influence of alcohol dulling her senses, she didn’t have a chance to avoid the hand that coiled around her neck.

The man squeezed hard, holding Akko down in spite of her thrashing and twisting. No amount of thumping, scratching, poking, or attempted biting would loosen his grip, though it didn’t stop Akko from trying. With as much strength as she could muster, she pushed herself around and managed to get just a whisper of air into her lungs, before he overcame her again and pushed her down once more. Then he used his free hand to turn on the bath tap. Icy cold water poured onto her face, and in her panic, some of it went into her nostrils, causing her to splutter.

And yet, it gave her an opportunity.

With his free hand operating the tap, Akko had just enough time to reach for her wand. She grabbed it and twisted the dial at the bottom all the way to the right, then pushed the button and swung it wildly at her aggressor. The end of the wand crackled with current, and before the man could react, Akko jabbed it into his shoulder. Without so much as a startled cry from the man, Akko felt his entire body lock up, and seconds later, the pressure around her neck disappeared as he collapsed onto the ground.

Now free to move, Akko sat bolt upright and turned the tap off as fast as she could, gasping and coughing as she recovered, before hauling herself out of the tub and wearily getting to her feet. Akko looked at the man she’d laid out, and felt a swell of sympathy for him as he twitched on the floor. Now he just looked pathetic. Akko straightened up and looked in the mirror, and despaired as she saw herself; her hair now fell in rats’ tails with the water, her dress was soaked, and angry red marks had begun appearing on her neck, where she’d been strangled.

But she didn’t even have time to fix her hair before a loud knocking came from the bathroom door.

“Lars! You okay in there? I thought I heard a voice.”

Akko bristled at the sound of his voice and spun around on her heels, brandishing the wand, ready to take down anybody who came in. The knocking came again, urgently, this time. “Lars! Is everything alright? Lars!”

The door opened, and another man – somehow even bigger than the one she’d knocked out – filled the doorway. Akko pounced. Within moments, she closed the gap, brandishing the wand with abandon as she went, but before she could reach him, he pulled a gun from his jacket, forcing Akko to change her course drastically. To continue charging at him would be as good as shooting herself, and so she dived between his legs before he could level the weapon. She made sure to give his leg a quick poke with the wand as she went. Rolling awkwardly away from him, Akko hoisted herself to a standing position and tried to follow up with another strike with the wand, but the initial shock didn’t seem to have had any effect on her target, and he punched her square in the face.

The force was incredible, knocking Akko’s head all the way back and stopping her dead in her tracks. With her head moving backwards at such a rate and her body continuing forward, Akko quickly fell to the ground, dazed and confused, and before she could even begin to get up again, the man pointed the gun at her.

Which left her with one last option.

“Ah-bu-bu-bu... wait… don’t use that.” Akko blurted, “It’s loud; you’ll attract a lot of attention that way.”

The man put his finger around the trigger, but to Akko’s relief, he didn’t pull it. “I’m sorry about your friend,” akko said, with sincerity, “he should be okay, though, and I don’t want to hurt you either.” Though he still loomed over her, Akko was thankful that she wasn’t dead. “I’m just here to look at Croix’s stuff. Please, just let me get up and I promise I won’t make any sudden movements, okay.”

The man considered her offer for a long time, and Akko dared to add a flutter of her eyelashes to make herself look more sweet and vulnerable, before he finally lowered the gun slightly. Enough to indicate that he was letting her get up, but not enough to let her get comfortable. Taking care to leave her wand on the floor, Akko eased herself to her feet and slowly put her hands in the air, showing him that she was now unarmed and that she posed no threat. Not that it wasn’t already obvious.

“I heard you call the guy in the bathroom Lars. My name’s Akko. Do you want to tell me your name?”

The man pondered her question, then nodded and said, “Walter. My name’s Walter.”

In spite of the circumstances, Akko was genuinely thrilled to be on first name terms with somebody new, and so she relaxed significantly. “Walter,” she said, milling it around and seeing if she liked the sound of it, “Nice to meet you, Walter.” He appeared taken aback by her cheerfulness, but not necessarily annoyed or upset by it, so Akko continued, “so how did you come to work for Croix?” Walter shrugged, “well, I guess I just kind of fell through the cracks a bit. I mean, a close protection job here, bouncer work there, then I get a few dodgy clients and all of a sudden I’m up to my neck in international arms dealer stuff and I can’t sleep because I’m terrified that a spy put poison on my pillow or something.”

Sucy had tried that one on her. She knew the feeling.

In fact, whether it was just that Akko was drunk or that she did indeed care for him, Akko found it suddenly very hard to see Walter as any kind of threat. And along with that came an idea. “How much is she paying you for all this?”

Walter rolled his eyes, “not enough, if you ask me. I mean, sure, I get a twenty thousand euro bonus for every dude I whack, but after a while, the money stops being worth the amount of bodies on your conscience, y’know?” Akko nodded. “That must be awful, but what would you say if I told you I could get you out of this?”

Walter scoffed, but Akko persisted, “Have you considered roadie work? I’m sure a man of your stature would make a great roadie, and you get to travel all around the world, and meet new people, and you wouldn’t have to lift a finger against anybody because the security people would do that for you.” She spoke passionately, and with sincerity, and Walter shifted about in his chair as he considered her offer. “You’d get to rub shoulders with rockstars, mess with cool stuff, and you’d get so many funny stories to tell people. You might even meet the love of your life on tour!”

He put the gun down.

For a while, Walter just sat stock still in his chair, and stared off into the middle distance, and Akko could only guess that he was wrestling with some inner demons about the issue. “Could I be a roadie for anybody?” He said, after much consideration, and Akko nodded, “anybody,” she said.

“Could I work for Maya Starlight?”

“You mean the  _ Two Steps Forward _ lady?” Akko asked. He nodded.

“Yeah. I love her work; sometimes I listen to her earlier stuff and it just makes the days go by that bit quicker, y’know.”

Akko let her hands down slowly, and started walking over to him, before extending a hand and a smile to him. He shook it.

“It’s a done deal,” Akko declared.

With that done, she made a gesture to the bathroom, “he’ll probably wake up soon. Could you do me a favour and tie him up and leave him outside for me? I’d do it myself, but I’m not that strong.” Walter nodded and got up to deal with Lars, leaving Akko alone for a short while to turn her attention to the case. She reached for the satchel, and winced as she felt how wet it was, then opened it to verify that the contents were, indeed, sodden.

Unless Croix’s case had miraculously got drenched in some kind of accident, replacing the documents inside with waterlogged copies would almost be worse than not swapping them at all. Seeing no other course of action, Akko went over to the bed. Laid upon the bed was an aluminium case – of the kind that she’d seen rifles come in – and next to it, an expensive laptop that appeared to be running a program.

Akko paused, momentarily distracted by what was on the laptop’s screen. It looked at first glance to be some sort of audio editing software, but on closer inspection, she realised that she’d not seen the program before in her life. Akko approached it with trepidation and took it in her hands to better see what it was up to. In the middle of the window, she could see a line that didn’t seem to be moving much, and she would have put it back down again instantly, if not for the title of the window.

DNRD_Bug.

A bolt of panic rushed down Akko’s spine, but she quickly quelled it as she remembered checking for bugs. Clearly, Croix had bugged a different room. Akko put the laptop back and made sure to fit it back into the mark it had left on the bed, then turned her attention to the case of details.

Having left it guarded, Croix hadn’t thought to fit a lock to it, but Akko glared at it anyway, looking for any sign that it might be booby-trapped before moving herself to the side and opening the catches. She lifted the lid slowly and braced herself for an alarm, or a smoke cloud, or any other amount of nastiness, but was pleasantly surprised to find that none came.

But she wasn’t pleasantly surprised to find what was inside.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Diana had to focus hard in order to avoid flinching at Akko’s shrill voice in her ear.

“Diana, this plan won’t work. Lose the game!”

The panic in Akko’s voice would have made Diana shudder in any other situation, but in front of Croix, she couldn’t risk moving so much as a muscle. Moreover, Akko’s interruption couldn’t have come at a worse time. For the past fifty or so minutes, Croix’s luck had been failing her, and although her face remained inscrutable, there was no way to hide that fact that her stack of chips had been slowly diminishing. At this point, a suicidal play followed by a quick exit would be about as suspicious as getting up and pointing her gun at Croix. No, Akko was asking the impossible.

Diana coughed politely. “I apologise, but I’m afraid I really must use the bathroom. Ladies’ troubles; I’m sure you’ll understand.”

The dealer gave her a nod, and Diana laid her cards face-down on the table, before getting up and heading to the bathroom. Once there, she strained to hear the players in the next room, then sequestered herself away in a stall to speak to Akko.

“That would be difficult, Kagari. I have Croix on the ropes now: what’s the emergency?”

Akko’s reply came through sharper than Diana would have liked, and she winced at the sound. “The documents aren’t here, Diana! All that’s in the case is a funny-looking poncho and a speaker; that’s it!”

Diana took a deep breath and let it out slowly. This was the kind of news that mothballed missions, and she couldn’t imagine how Luna Obscura could have made so grave a mistake. With its cutting-edge technology and network of informants around the world, it was practically unheard of for any Luna Obscura student to be sent into the field without good information. Momentarily, Diana feared that Luna Obscura had been infiltrated by an enemy agent, but she quickly came to her senses.

She had come this far. She was going to complete the mission.

“Kagari, I need you to listen to me carefully: I want you to get back to our room and dump the files. Burn them if you have to; just dispose of them in case somebody sees them and get one of the staff to put our cases in the car. With haste.” 

There was an uncomfortable silence from the other end. “I understand,” Akko said.

Diana got up, flushed the toilet, washed her hands, checked her gun, and returned to her seat at the poker table.

For as intimidating as Croix was, Diana couldn’t sense any difference in her demeanour, so she had to assume that Croix hadn’t noticed anything amiss. Or that if she had, Croix wasn’t letting on. Diana picked her cards up slowly and took stock of the hand she’d been given. While not the disastrous hand she dreaded, the collection of cards she found herself with hardly amounted to anything more than mediocrity. With a pair of queens and a matching numbered card in her favour, Diana could reasonably just play the hand and hope that Croix was hiding a stinker of a hand, but with two worthless cards at her disposal, switching them out could only help her chances. But if Diana did that, that would signal to Croix in no uncertain terms just how little faith she had in her own cards.

Giving away that kind of information to Croix would be disastrous.

Diana divided up precisely a quarter of her chips, then pushed them into the middle of the table, watching Croix closely, for any semblance of a reaction – positive or negative – but Croix remained unreadable as ever. Even as she pushed her entire reserve of chips into the middle.

“All in.”

Diana’s heart fluttered, as she considered the consequences of losing the hand. Staking a quarter of her winnings on middling odds was something she’d rather not have to do, and were she to lose, Croix would be firmly back in the game. 

Croix put down her cards and Diana did likewise, then, one by one, they turned their cards over.

Everyone in the room held their breath as their cards turned, and Diana breathed in sharply as Croix turned over her ace, but without any matching cards to back it up, Diana’s two queens won out.

“Congratulations, Miss Belvedere,” Croix said.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The door to the room opened quietly, and Akko watched in awe as Diana walked in with a face like thunder.

“Come on, Mari. I need you present for this.”

Akko shot Diana a look of confusion, having momentarily forgotten her alias, but the scowl Diana gave back reminded her of it, quite sharply. She sat up from the bed and took her place beside Diana, then pointed to the fireplace, where she had burned all the documents.

From along the hallway, Akko heard Croix’s door closing, and once it did, Diana made a gesture for them to make their way over. “You’re sodden,” Diana whispered, and Akko shrugged, “there was a big guy, he tried to drown me. I’m fine.”

Diana’s reaction was nothing short of incredulous, and no doubt she would have talked her ear off about her actions, were it not for the fact that they now found themselves outside Croix’s suite. Walter opened the door, and Akko gave him a subtle nod as they made their way inside.

Croix stood next to the case that Akko had opened earlier, looking for all the world as if she were selling a car, and Diana walked over to her to shake her hand. “This is Mari. She’s my financier; she’s here to make sure that the transaction here happens smoothly,” Diana said, casting Akko a cursory gesture to introduce her to Croix. Walter closed the door behind them.

“That’s all very well, Miss Belvedere. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” Croix held up a finger to indicate she wanted Diana to wait, as she turned her attention to Walter, “what happened to Lars?” Walter shrugged, “he hit the bar, Madam” he said.

Croix gave him a disapproving scowl, then laid her hands on top of the case, hovering her fingers over the latches. “Now, tell me, Miss Belvedere: is there a spy in particular you want rid of, or is this all just insurance for you?”

Akko glanced at Diana as covertly as she could, but Diana answered perfectly. “I was reliably informed by those who should know, that the prize tonight would be something altogether more impressive than just a list.” Croix mulled Diana’s response over, and as she did so, Akko felt a growing sense of unease. Normally, being around targets made her feel uncomfortable, but right now, Akko was gripped by a kind of creeping dread that she’d not felt before. The woman in front of her scared her deeply, and not even having Diana by her side could assuage her fears.

“Correct answer” Croix said, in a sultry tone, before lifting the lid and revealing the contents.

“I present to you... the very last word in active stealth technology,” she announced, before lifting out the shapeless, brown poncho that Akko had seen before. With a flourish of her hand, Croix reached inside the garment and pushed something.

The poncho changed colour, shimmered like a mirage, then disappeared completely.

Akko gasped along with Diana as Croix waved the poncho around. No matter how hard she tried, Akko could only ever make out a vague outline of the cloak as Croix moved it around – and even then, only for a fraction of a second, before it became invisible again. But as impressive as that was, Akko’s sense of dread finally bloomed into visceral fear as she realised that a trap had just shut around her.

She’d only ever seen that kind of stealth technology used by one spy: Sneaky Chariot.

Croix reached inside and turned off the device. “Over twelve million organic LEDs are hidden under the fabric of this cloak, accompanied by over six million tiny mirrors, each of which update seventy times a second to make the wearer completely invisible.” Croix put it back in its case and Diana made appreciative noises before Croix took the speaker and continued her sales patter.

“And of course, to go with the cloak, this speaker here is lightweight and able to be powered by a modest battery. Unassuming at first, but if you fit the provided microphone to the muzzle of any gun and turn it on, the onboard software will create a perfect copy of the noise in real time. One that’s out of phase with the muzzle report, nullifying it completely. Yes, that’s right. A true silencer. And it’s all yours.”

Croix put it back into the case and closed the lid, as Akko began frantically pressing on the toe ring. Trying her very best not to draw attention to herself, Akko looked around the room and found that the laptop had disappeared. Croix closed the catches, and made a little gesture to walter, who closed the door behind them and locked it. She spoke slowly, and dangerously

“Well, then, if you have no objections, the goods are all yours… Miss Cavendish.”

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Diana went to reach for the case, but stopped halfway as she heard her real name. “I can assure you that I don’t know anybody by that name.” Diana protested, but Croix gave her a withering glance, and Diana was forced to drop the act. With a flourish, Croix pulled the duvet back and revealed the laptop, before speaking to Diana. “I’ll give you credit where it’s due: you live up to your reputation. In fact, Diana, I might well have believed you were a legitimate buyer, were it not for something a little birdie told me.” She opened the bug’s recording program and took it back to when Akko had come into the room after taking poison. Croix played a short extract of it, just to hammer her point home.

“You see, I got back to my room after the first round and I thought I’d do a little research on who this mysterious Belvedere person was. But, while I was looking for you in all the normal places, I noticed that my computer picked up one of my old bugs. Naturally, I decided to take a listen for old times’ sake and what do you know? I caught myself a whopper.”

Croix played the little bit of the recording again, to taunt them.

“You couldn’t possibly be talking about  _ that _ Director Finnelan? Because  _ that  _ Director Finnelan works for Luna Obscura. Doesn’t she?”

The look of satisfaction on Croix’s face was more infuriating than Akko could bear. And yet, as much as she tried to push the thought out of her head, Akko now found herself wrestling with a question that made her stomach churn. Croix knew how to operate Chariot’s bugs, she had Chariot’s invisibility cloak, she was in the same casino that Chariot had gone to. Akko had to fight back tears as she spoke up. “Are you Sneaky Chariot?” Akko said. Croix laughed a cruel and bitter laugh, “it’s been a while since I heard that name” she said, then pulled up her dress to reveal a long, black handgun. She cocked it and pointed it right at Akko.

“Tell me, does this look like Chariot’s gun?”

Immediately, Diana drew her own gun and pointed it at Croix in retaliation, but Croix merely raised an eyebrow. “I see Luna Obscura still hasn’t updated the standard firearms: six millimetre, short slide, eight round capacity, terrible trigger response. I should know, I designed the palmprint grip.” Croix’s flat and superior tone told Akko that she wasn’t lying. “Now, I’m going to go out on a limb, and say you’re here because somebody at Luna Obscura got wind of a list of spies’ identities that got stolen. Correct?”

Akko nodded, then quickly shook her head, realising her mistake.

Her rookie error seemed to bring Croix great mirth. “Well, isn’t that funny,” she said, “you tell those old crones that somebody’s selling super stealth equipment and nobody bats an eyelid, but say some spooks got compromised and suddenly they send the daughter of Bernadette Cavendish.” Even with a gun pointed at her head, Akko noticed Diana bristling at the mention of her mother. “Oh, did I touch a nerve there?” Croix said, but Akko interrupted before Diana had chance to respond.

“Wait, how did you know it was Diana?”

Croix narrowed her eyes, and moved her gun closer to Akko’s head in a clear attempt to provoke Diana. “Three syllables, sounds fancy. I connected the dots. After all, doesn’t Director Babcock always say to pick an alias with the same amount of syllables so you’ll respond to it better?” 

It was painfully clear that Diana was beginning to lose her cool now, but worryingly, the little flickers of emotion Akko saw on Diana’s face were of panic, confusion, and sadness.

Akko’s heart sank as Diana’s thought process became clear to her. As leader of blue team and favourite of Director Finnelan, Diana – and Diana alone – was authorised to make decisions against the life of another agent. If the circumstances mandated it, she could sacrifice another agent for the sake of the mission. Diana was making that judgement call.

And as hard as she tried to hide it, it was tearing her apart.

Akko could see Diana’s hand trembling slightly, and Croix had noticed too. “Get away from her, Croix. I will shoot if I have to,” Diana warned, but Croix remained steadfast. Akko’s eyes darted around the room as Diana tried to gain control of the situation, and at last, she saw a way out, standing by the door.

Akko desperately wanted to call across the room to Walter, who was standing guard by the door, but with Croix holding her at gunpoint, all she could do was to make eye contact. After a tense few seconds, Walter finally caught her gaze. Akko took a deep breath.

“Walter! Do it!” Akko screamed, and Walter panicked. She hadn’t given him any instructions beforehand, and she didn’t have any idea what he would do, but as she hoped, Walter made a dash for the door. In a flash, Croix turned her attention away from her and pointed the gun at Walter, giving Akko enough time to bring the wand to bear. She jabbed the end into Croix’s side, but instead of dropping to the floor in convulsions, Croix swivelled and levelled her gun against Akko.

Croix’s gun went off with a deep and powerful boom, and Akko felt splinters from the floor hit her where the bullet had torn its way through the floor. In the flurry of activity, Diana had thrown herself over Croix just before she fired, leaving Akko free to grab the case.

Diana and Croix had collapsed into a heap, and for all of her training, Diana seemed to just be wailing on Croix. They grunted and howled as they rolled on the floor, each trying to force their guns into a viable angle, and the moment Akko took the case, she swung it at Croix. With her help, Diana managed to momentarily overpower Croix, and Diana might have been able to finish the fight then and there, if Croix hadn’t fired her gun right next to Diana’s ear. “Get to the car now!” Diana barked over the sound of falling plaster. Akko didn’t argue.

Akko ran for the patio doors, and flung them open as Diana continued fighting. Behind her, Croix’s gun went off again and a part of the concrete balcony exploded as the bullet hit. She threw her hands up to protect herself from the debris as another, much sharper report came from the fight. She looked back to see if Diana had managed to end the fight, but found that Diana had only fired to cover her escape from the room.

Croix ran after her.

The drop from the balcony wouldn’t kill Akko if she landed right, and a large ornamental bush below afforded her a softer landing than just dropping down, but even so, hurling herself off the balcony terrified her. She looked at Lars, who had been bound and gagged by Walter after the fight and gave him a nod, then jumped.

The fall was longer than she expected, the bush was pricklier than she’d expected, and the alcohol she’d consumed earlier didn’t numb the pain as much as she’d expected. All of which added up to a particularly painful landing. She hit the bush with significant force, causing it to push back on her, scratching any and all of her bare skin and covering her in tiny bits of vegetation, before throwing her backwards. Akko landed on her back, with a thump. By the time she got up, she could hear screaming and commotion inside the casino, as the patrons realised there was a gunfight going on and began to flee. If she didn’t get Diana’s car now, the exodus would make it impossible to drive out.

Sucking in air hard to cope with the pain, Akko half-run-half-limped over to Diana’s car and grabbed the handle as hard as she dared. It didn’t open. She threw her arms up in frustration, then pointed the magic wand at the door and pressed a button. The door unlocked this time, and Akko clambered inside as a series of gunshots came from the casino.

At least that meant that Diana wasn’t dead.

Akko shut the door with far more force than necessary, then gripped the steering wheel and jabbed the start button. Nothing happened. She pushed it again, but still got nothing. Akko poked her earpiece. “Diana! The car won’t start!” She yelled.

She looked over to the entrance of the casino, where the hubbub seemed to be moving to, just before Diana’s reply reached her.

“Use the password!” 

Akko felt like hitting herself in frustration. She pushed the start button again, before yelling at it. 

“Tia Frele!”

No response. Akko tried again, “Tia Frele!” Still nothing. After the third attempt, she pushed her earpiece again, “It’s still not working!” she cried. She heard another gunshot and looked again, to see Diana sprinting towards her.

Diana looked back quickly and fired twice, but Croix was nimble enough to avoid her fire, and Diana’s shots went wide, leaving her with an empty magazine. Akko saw her pushing her ear and heard her voice moments later, “put the earpiece on the wheel!” Diana said, and she complied.

The moment she did, all twelve of the engine’s cylinders howled into life.

The needles and dials all lit up, and Akko rammed her foot on the accelerator – but short of a noise straight from hell itself, nothing happened. “Put it in gear!” Diana hollered over the engine noise, and Akko shoved the gear stick, which provoked an awful grinding noise from the car and made it lurch forward, before stalling.

Fortunately, Diana had managed to reach the car by the time she pressed the starter button again.

Akko opened the door and shuffled herself clumsily over the central column and into the passenger seat, in time for Diana to leap in. She closed the door, put her foot down, and Akko braced herself against acceleration that she’d only experienced in jet aircraft.

Within seconds, Diana drove out of the car park.

But it didn’t take long for Croix to catch up.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The windy roads that led to the Absolution casino were difficult to navigate in the daytime, but at night they were dangerous, and in a storm, they were positively treacherous.

Akko gripped her seat and whimpered in fear as Diana fought to keep the Aston Martin on the road. The windscreen wipers were almost useless against the deluge of rain, the wind threatened to push them one way or another, and in spite of all the modifications to the car, nothing could overcome the effect of all the water on the road. The engine whistled, roared and whined as Diana jabbed at the pedals and shifted gears. And behind them, came an altogether more guttural noise.

A blinding white light penetrated the darkness of the car’s interior, and reflected off the rear view mirror, dazzling Diana. The car slowed down momentarily, as Diana had to swat at the mirror, allowing Croix to catch up.

Akko looked back, in time to see a red and black Audi gaining on them fast, then squealed as Croix leaned out of the window, pointed her gun at them, and fired.

There was a startling bang as the bullet went through the boot and hit an armour plate behind the rear seats, and Diana was forced to take her eyes off the road to see where the next shot might go. Seconds later, Akko watched in horror as a bullet tore its way through the front of the car as Diana took a hard turn, taking out a headlight as it went.

Diana took out her gun and opened her window, before ejecting her empty magazine out of it and thrusting the empty gun at Akko. “Load it,” Diana barked, and Akko grabbed it as fast as she could, before fumbling around with it.

The sound of the Audi grew louder as Akko plunged her hand into the same compartment she’d got the earpieces from, and she dropped the replacement magazine twice as she tried to fit it into place.

As if to hurry her up, Croix took another shot.

The glass behind Akko buckled and cracked, but it held in place long enough for her to finish reloading Diana’s gun. Akko pulled the slide back as hard as she could, and the gun buzzed as it rejected her handprint. She gave the gun back over to Diana with the muzzle pointing at her. Diana snatched it out of her hand. “Never hand it to me like that,” she said, then pointed it out the side and took two shots in quick succession.

By way of reply, Croix took another shot at the rear window, which ejected fine particles of glass as it strained to stop the second bullet.

Akko found herself unable to form coherent sentences, as she watched Diana firing backwards out of the window while driving. Instead, she just blubbered.

Diana took a corner at incredible speed, and Akko felt the wheels sliding as the car failed to grip the road, and no sooner Diana straightened the car out, a bullet came through the passenger door. Akko screamed, then ducked as Diana swung her arm round to fire back out the passenger window.

She fired twice, temporarily deafening Akko with the report and ejecting hot casings into her lap before accelerating aggressively. The lights from the Audi still followed them, like the eyes of a beast – eyes that brought punishment if they stayed within them too long. Lightning flashed, and Akko caught a glimpse of the car behind much clearer, and she saw how little Diana’s gun had done.

Croix fired again, and the rear window exploded into fine shards of glass that pierced her skin and embedded themselves in the upholstery.

In response, Diana pointed her gun out of the back window and fired off another two shots in quick succession, lighting the car’s interior in flashes of brilliant yellow, before the slide on her gun filed to return. Diana growled her displeasure and tossed her gun into the back seat, before weaving hard to the right to get out of the way of another shot.

The light from the car’s dials lit up Diana’s face enough for Akko to see her fear, and the way she jerked the steering wheel around spoke volumes of the physical and mental exertion. Diana thumped a button on her side, and Akko noticed another hidden compartment in the door opening to reveal two more guns.

“Take Parker’s gun!” Diana bellowed over the engine noise and the wind, and Akko realised how desperate Diana had to be. She wasn’t trained to use a gun, she wasn’t cleared for it, and Barbara’s gun would almost certainly reject her palmprint. She reached out for the gun higher up on the rack, but then she stopped.

“No, Akko. Parker’s gun. Don’t you dare.”

She reached for the bottom gun and pulled out something she didn’t think she would ever get to lay her hands on.

Sneaky Chariot’s gun. The Sneaky Rod

Even in the limited light, Akko could tell exactly what she was holding. A massive automatic revolver would be an unusual choice for any spy, but the polished and finely engraved chrome on a jewel-encrusted fake ivory handle was truly a one-of-a-kind look. Croix’s headlamps bathed the car in light again, long enough for Akko to make out the inscription;  _ Noct Orfei Auden Fraetore, _ written in calligraphy along the length of the barrel.

It beeped.

Diana nearly crashed the car in shock.

The whole top half of the gun snapped forward a few millimetres, as the grip allowed her to use the gun, and she pushed the lever to break it open, just like she’d seen Sneaky Chariot do, so many times before.

Five bullets as wide as her middle finger lay in the cylinder, ready to be fired.

“Only shoot if you’re sure you’re going to hit something,” Diana said, and Akko ducked as Croix let loose another bullet, which obliterated the headrest.

The car lurched to the right as Diana took another corner and shifted gears, and Akko took off her seatbelt to get up. She looked at the approaching car and saw Croix trying to line up a shot, then placed the muzzle of the Sneaky Rod on the seat and pumped it hard to cock the hammer.

Diana glared at her. “ _ Not like that and not in my car! _ ” She snapped, but now Akko had her chance.

Diana swerved and braked to try to throw Croix’s aim off and buy Akko some more time, as she clambered into the back seat and pointed the gun at Croix’s car. The motion of the Aston Martin made it difficult to place her shot, and Akko found herself fighting against the air currents that threatened to pull her out of the car entirely, but she put a foot on the back seat to steady herself.

Diana straightened out, and Akko pointed the gun straight at where Croix was sitting. Then stopped. She moved the gun lower and off to the left, then fired.

The gun went off with a powerful, percussive, thumping sound, and the cylinder and barrel came straight back at her at an alarming rate. The action absorbed some of the recoil, but having never fired a gun in her life – let alone one so powerful – Akko was still knocked off balance.

But she stayed upright for long enough to see the effect it had on Croix’s car.

The bullet went straight through the bonnet, through the engine block, through the gearbox, and finally, into the ground. The black and red audi slowed down immediately, then began shaking violently as the finely-tuned engine tore itself apart. Oil, water, and fuel sprayed out of the bottom of the car, along with fine debris and a shower of sparks that risked igniting the mixture. The noise was heinous.

When Akko finally managed to pull herself out of the footwell, all she could see of Croix’s car was a single white light, being swiftly swallowed by the darkness.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The radio tower looked beautiful in the sunset.

It rose tall over the rest of Luna Obscura, casting a shadow over the ancient campus which stretched as far as the forest that surrounded the facility. Atop the tower, an array of antennas and dishes scooped up signals and listened for secrets, to sate the needs of the sprawling behemoth of radio equipment that lay inside.

It was also where Director Ursula had her office.

Akko climbed the last of the steps, adjusted her satchel, and knocked on the door. From inside, she heard a scuffling, followed by six gentle steps, then the door opened and Director Ursula poked her head around the door. “Oh, Akko, what a nice surprise. Come on in.”

Ursula opened the door for her, and Akko entered.

Ursula’s office was quite unlike any of the other directors’ offices: where the others all had fastidiously tidy desks and sleek laptops, Ursula’s desk was tiny, and utterly covered in paperwork. Either side of her desk, stood bookshelves, crammed with volume upon volume of codebreaking books, ring binders, and loose paper. Beneath Akko’s feet, a veritable snake pit of cables coiled its way from the sockets over to the radio equipment, and above her head, no less than six monitors all displayed different progress bars.

And then, of course, there was the noise. Luna Obscura’s listening system was a towering franken-beast of radio scanners, signal boosters, scramblers, computers, decoders, speakers, microphones, and vacuum tubes, which blotted out all natural light in the room. And from the monstrous machine, came a constant stream of sound. The speakers emitted an endless stream of music box chiming, buzzing, cartoon sound effects, static, beeps and boops, and no less than four different voices, all reading out strange series of numbers.

Ursula called the machine Alcor.

Akko wondered how Ursula could possibly stand the noise, let alone sleep in the same room, yet as she offered Akko a seat, she hardly seemed to notice it at all.

Akko took the seat, and Ursula offered her a cup of tea as they settled down to talk together. “So I hear the Italy mission was a success,” she said. Akko nodded. “Oh, well congratulations, that’s wonderful! Also, Holbrooke tells me that in light of the mission, you’ve been granted clearance for lethal weapons. I’m so proud of you, Akko, I knew you’d do well.” Akko looked bashful, but that didn’t last. Remembering what she’d come to the tower for, Akko reached into the satchel and slowly took out Sneaky Chariot’s gun.

“I found this in Diana’s car. Do you know why she had it?”

Ursula stared at it, incredulously. “Well, that’s peculiar… Holbrooke mentioned that you fired a gun, but she neglected to tell me it was  _ this _ gun,” she said. “though with Diana’s talent, I should imagine she merely omitted that detail in her report.” Akko nodded understandingly, not noticing the strange gleam in Ursula’s eye. “It also seems to accept my handprint,” Akko said, “I thought only Sneaky Chariot could use it?”

Ursula nodded, then reached out to pick it up. “That’s true,” she said, turning the gun around in her hand. “Though, if I remember rightly, she started working on a way of remotely unlocking the gun for people she trusted before she vanished. I never thought she actually finished it.”

“I never thought she had anybody she trusted,” Akko added, but that thought was quickly followed up by something much more worrisome.

“Ursula… Did you know anybody called Croix when you were at Luna Obscura?”

Even Akko couldn’t fail to notice Ursula shuffling uncomfortably.

“Yes, I remember her. She was always a good student; she had a thing for gadgets, if I remember rightly. Her preference for the more technical side of spy work made her unpopular with the students, though I seem to remember it endearing her to Chariot… you know, when she was here.” Akko’s eyes widened, “you mean, she and Chariot were friends?”

Ursula gave a solemn nod. “I’m afraid so, Akko. Consequently, I should imagine that the technology you encountered was the result of Croix stealing Chariot’s old ga…”

She would have gone on, but a careful knock at the door startled Ursula out of her thoughts, and when she opened it, Akko saw Diana on the other side.

“I need to speak with Agent Kagari. It’s a rather pressing matter.”

Ursula was momentarily flustered, but eventually she regained her composure. “Oh, that’s convenient, we were just about all wrapped up here,” she said, with an awkward laugh. Akko shrugged in confusion. “But I haven’t finished my tea,” she protested, but Ursula just reiterated herself.

“We’re all wrapped up here, aren’t we, Akko?”

Figuring that she wasn’t going to get much more out of Ursula tonight, Akko got up and drank her tea down, then joined Diana. “Goodnight, Akko,” Ursula said, and she waved them off cheerfully.

Then she slammed her door shut.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By the time they reached Diana’s dormitory, the sunset had turned to twilight, and the long shadows in the room had turned into a prevailing darkness.

Diana turned on her bedside lamp and Akko obediently sat on the bed, before curling up in the pool of light and making herself comfy. Much to her chagrin. Diana cleared her throat, but ultimately, it was Akko who spoke first.

“Where’s Hannah and Barbara?” She said, “I thought they’d be back by now?”

“They’re coming back tomorrow. I was told they would be back today, but I expect Parker may have put it off on account of the new Skyfall book being released.” Akko pondered what she’d said, but Diana pressed on, before she could think of something else inane to say. 

“Akko. I owe you an explanation.”

Diana sat down next to Akko and knitted her fingers together. “I’m sorry I snapped at you in the car. The truth of the matter is I’m as big a fan of Sneaky Chariot as you are; I just wish I could express it as well as you do.”

Diana could have sworn she saw Akko’s eyes sparkling as she admitted her secret.

“I found the sneaky rod about two years ago on a mission in a rural part of France. I picked it up from a mudbank on the side of the Dordogne river, and of course, it rejected my palm. For the last two years I’ve kept it with me, either in my car or in this room, trying to get it to accept my palmprint by any means I could think of. Unfortunately, Luna Obscura’s biometric verification system is absolutely watertight. So you can imagine my surprise when you grabbed it and it worked for you.”

Akko tilted her head like a dog, “you mean it never worked for you? And what was it doing in France?”

“I wish I knew,” Diana said, with a heavy tone, “Though I fear that’s not the most pressing issue.”

Diana reached for her bedside table and pulled open the drawer to get at her laptop. She opened it and logged in, then turned it round so that Akko could see the report that she’d made. “Wow. That’s thorough,” Akko remarked. The light from the screen illuminated her face in a ghostly pale hue as she read through the report, and Diana waited patiently for her to get to the part of it that she’d highlighted.

“Wait… I thought Croix only appeared on the scene a year or so ago?” Akko said.

“That’s what Luna Obscura’s archives say about her, but I’ve been doing some research on her in my spare time. Sure enough, Croix did only become known to the world last year, but I started looking for incidents where terrorist groups had been using exotic equipment, and I found a pattern going back at least five years.”

“So she’s been doing this longer than we think?” Akko asked, and Diana nodded. “I’m currently working under the assumption that the only reason we’ve heard about her, is because she wants us to.”

The look of worry on Akko’s face was quite remarkable. “Therefore, Akko, we must assume that Luna Obscura is now under threat. And after what happened at the casino, I would be prepared to argue that with the board of directors.”

“So why haven’t you told them?” Akko said, and Diana opened another file on her laptop.

“Because I believe that Luna Obscura might be compromised. That’s why I’m talking with you now.”

“But we can’t be compromised!” Akko cried, which forced Diana to make a gesture for her to calm herself. “I heard what Director Ursula said about Croix,” Diana said. “Between the bugs, her history at Luna Obscura and the sudden offensive, it would be ill-advised to simply carry on as normal. That’s why I’m creating Operation Arcturus.”

Akko now seemed quite enthusiastic about the idea.

“I don’t know what she’s going to do next or when, but I need you to pay attention to anything that might link back to her. As of now, I’m keeping this strictly between our teams, but should the need arise, tell only those you trust.”

“Got it. I won’t let you down,” Akko said, adding a salute for emphasis, but Diana hadn’t finished. “Oh, and one more thing, Akko…”

“Don’t say a word about this to Ursula.”


End file.
